


A little Brighter

by parttimefemmefatale (writingramblr)



Series: Valentine's Day collection 2/14/14 [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crossing Timelines, Doctor Who AU, F/M, Fix It Fic, Fluffy, Sweet, Time Travel, alt journeys end, alt season 4, happy early vday, happy endings, no tentoo, river who's river?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/pseuds/parttimefemmefatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at how Journey's End could have gone if Tentoo hadn't been created, leading to no Donna/doctor complex, and Rose deciding to stay with her Doctor.<br/>Jack tackles Ten, mid regeneration and takes in the excess energy, instead of the Doctor's hand (which always creeped me out anyway)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A little Brighter

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly based of a rant i posted on tumblr, and then couldn't stop myself from writing this. It also pretty much ignores River, and if i ever add to this, an alternate s5 means it's still Ten.  
> It's pretty fluffy, and in the spirit of Valentine's Day, i couldn't wait, and now i'm posting it. yeah.  
> Donna gets a happy ending too, cause damn it she deserves one!  
> p.s. seriously this is extreme fluff and AUness so turn back now if that's not your thing....  
> and yes i know without tentoo technically everyone would be dead...but nevermind that!
> 
>  
> 
> *au*
> 
> last chance!

“It’s too late, I’m regenerating!”

The Tenth Doctor stood in the center of the TARDIS, and with a final pained look at Rose, his arms were forced from his sides, and he began to glow bright gold.

Jack leapt from Rose and Sarah Jane’s side, and enveloped the Doctor in a hug, feeling the burn of his Time Lord power infecting his blood stream and his very center.

The Doctor could feel his power being drained slightly, and he then looked down to find Jack staggering back from him, a thunderstruck expression on his handsome face.

“What have you done?”

“Saved your life, I think.”

Jack smiled his usual cocky grin, before doubling over in pain, and collapsing to the floor.

Donna was at his side in an instant, and Rose would have followed, but she was staring at the Doctor.

“You still look like you.”

The Doctor reached up to feel his face, and ran his tongue around his teeth.

“Yep. Still me. Good ol’ clever Jack. He absorbed all my excess energy. Nearly killed him. Nah. It _did_ kill him. But he’ll be better in a moment.”

Rose looked momentarily horrified, but still threw her arms around him, relieved he hadn’t changed.

Jack was beginning to stir on the floor, and Donna smiled for a brief instant, before unleashing her anger on the Doctor.

“What were you thinkin’? Lettin’ ‘im do that?”

The Doctor shrugged,

“I didn’t ask him to. I guess he just really liked this face.”

He winked at Rose, who fought back a laugh. An angry Donna wasn’t to be messed with.

When Jack finally stood up, a bit shakily to be sure, but nonetheless alive, she finally calmed down.

“How do you feel?”

“I ought to be asking you.”

Jack grimaced,

“It was worth it. We still need you. Now I can’t say I wouldn’t mind giving that Dalek a piece of my mind.”

“I can’t argue with that. Let’s go!”

***

Together, piloting the TARDIS, they manage to bring the Earth home. With the Daleks defeated, and all well again in the universe, the Doctor found himself having to say goodbye too soon again.

Sarah Jane was the first, and after he gave her a great big hug, and bid her farewell, something inside him told him that this was the final time he’d see her.

He watched her run away, off to find her son, and barely held back tears.

When Martha and Jack stepped out after they’d landed in Cardiff, The Doctor was sure he hadn’t seen the last of them.

“Take care now Doc.” Martha gave him a salute and Jack followed suit. Something that the Doctor normally would have argued against, he found himself nodding, and smiling at them both.

“Thank you. I don’t have to tell you the same. But as for you, maybe find a nice deep hole to drop that key.”

He looked pointedly at Martha, who laughed,

“Not to worry Doctor, I’m going to get rid of it ASAP.”

“Make sure you do. You might also want to think about getting a new job. I bet Torchwood is hiring. They could use a mind like yours.”

Jack shrugged, looking her over, and then he offered his arm,

“May I walk you to your car?”

Martha laughed again, but didn’t look too unhappy with the suggestion.

The Doctor turned back to go inside the TARDIS, but was nudged out of the way by Mickey, who gave him a smile, and a cheerful,

“See ya boss.”

“Oi, where are you going? What about Pete’s world?”

Mickey shrugged, hands in his pockets,

“I haven’t got anything left for me there. My gran passed away, nice and peaceful a few months back. So I figured, I’m here now. Might as well make a new start. I could _do_ anything, be anyone.”

The Doctor nodded, and watched him go with a lightness in his hearts, calling out to him,

“Good luck Mickey, don’t cause any trouble!”

“You know me!”

The Doctor grinned, and stepped into the TARDIS, prepared to start the engines and make the last trip, when a hand on his arm made him pause.

“What’re you doing?”

Rose’s voice was soft, as if she was talking to a scared animal.

He licked his lips quickly, and avoided her gaze,

“Well it’s about time we got you home.”

He looked over to see Donna watching them closely, and her eyes flickered towards Rose, along with a frustrated expression he knew well.

“Home? But Doctor, I _am_ home. This is more my home than anyplace in all of space. There’s nothing left for me back on earth. My mum and dad have each other, and Tony. I always feel in the way. Now that I’ve found you, where did you think I was going? I said forever. I meant it.”

The Doctor finally looked up, and met her gaze. After seeing the unshed tears evident in her eyes, he let go of the console and held out his arms, which she gladly fell into.

He held her close, breathed in her scent, and wondered just how mad he’d been to actually consider trying to send her away.

She was right. This was his home, and by default, hers.

“Then what shall we do? Go visit an exploding star? Step back in time and meet Benjamin Franklin? I always wanted to know if he really got struck with a lightning bolt, or if that was just an exaggeration. To survive that, he might not even be completely human. What if-?”

He stopped when he saw the way Rose was looking at him, as if she might burst out laughing.

“What is it?”

“I think Donna might have an idea. Why don’t you let her pick?”

The Doctor nodded, and turned to his newest companion,

“Well now out with it. Where do you want to go?”

Donna suddenly looked shy. The woman who’d managed to save half the galaxy, reunited him with the only woman he gave his life for, and she was nervous to ask him to take her somewhere.

“I don’t want to just be dropped off on some planet of course. But there is one place I’d like to go back to. Only for a moment. Just to check on something.”

The Doctor nodded, slightly impatient to hear when and where.

“Sounds like a good idea. Double checking things is good. Can you give me an idea of where it is we’ll be repeating our visit?”

Donna coughed nervously,

“The Library.”

Rose glanced at the Doctor, noting how his eyes widened, and he looked rather strained.

“Ah, well, that might not be a good idea.”

Rose looked completely lost,

“What’s wrong with going to a library?”

Donna gave a little laugh, and the Doctor explained what had happened during their visit to the Library. How it was more than a place to check out books, it was a planet, and had been nearly deadly to them both, and more than that to quite a few people.

“We still managed to rescue most of the five thousand people who’d been ‘saved,’ and I just wondered if Lee had been among them. With a different name of course. I mean, who knows, we could have just missed him. I want to go back, and make certain he wasn’t there.”

The Doctor was already reaching for a lever, and he paused halfway,

“’Lee?’ You remember his name? After all this time? Oh Donna Noble, I certainly hope we do find him.”

Rose grinned at the redhead, who was trying not to look quite like the girl-with-a-crush that she felt.

A gentle hand on his shoulder, and the constant reassurance of her presence meant the Doctor was able to perfectly navigate the TARDIS, landing them all precisely across the room from where the first Doctor and Donna had been watching the teleport pads. They were out of sight of their previous selves, but perfectly able to see any and all of the library’s former prisoners.

Donna nearly went flying out of the doors, but the Doctor stopped her.

“Wait. Wait until you see us leaving. I don’t fancy ripping a whole in time here. That wasn’t fun the last time it happened.”

He gave Rose a meaningful glance, and she felt her cheeks heat up. That little incident had been partly her fault, and the only positive thing she’d gotten out of it was the motivation to save the Doctor’s life a few months after.

Donna was careful, and slipped out the doors, just in time to see herself turned the corner, and leave her sight.

After that, she was running towards the teleport pads, her eyes scanning each and every face.

A tall dark haired man caught her attention, and even before she focused her gaze on him, she knew it was Lee.

Or what her mind had called her dream husband.

She could see he was trying to speak, and when she moved closer to him, he stepped right off the teleport pad, walking right up to her and pulling her into a hug.

She couldn’t make out a word of what he was stumbling over his words to say, but she could imagine.

“I’m so glad to see you!”

“Mm-m-m-me too.”

The Doctor and Rose watched from just inside the TARDIS, and they both fought back a triumphant smile. “This is just too perfect. From what I’ve seen of her, Donna doesn’t seem the type to like hugs. She must really like this bloke.”

The Doctor shrugged,

“Though they were introduced and sort of married for a little while, I was rather concerned it had been all in her head. However considering the amount of people who seemed to be fake and then turned out to have been merely trapped, it was just as likely he had simply been too late to find her. I’m quite glad. Though how we’re going to get him and her back to earth is another matter.”

***

In his excitement to see Donna, and actually be in her presence for real, by the time Lee noticed the inside of the TARDIS, he was hardly able to form full sentences.

Donna just sat with him, holding his hand, and babbling on about _her_ earth while Rose and the Doctor attempted to pilot them back to the 21 st century.

They said their goodbyes in a leisurely fashion, and Donna gave Rose one of her rare hugs.

“Keep him out of trouble, he needs a firm hand.” She nodded to the Doctor, who was going on about the way he’d saved the planet with Donna’s help to Lee.

Rose chewed her lower lip, and nodded. She couldn’t argue with that, but she also didn’t know how differently things might have turned out if Donna hadn’t been traveling with the Doctor when she had. That was a story for another day.

Rose and the Doctor bid Donna and her bashful bloke goodbye, and returned to the TARDIS.

***

“Well now Rose Tyler, what should we do first?”

Rose blushed and glanced around the console room, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. Was he asking what she thought he was?

“I was thinking we should go revisit Woman Wept. If we’re on a kick of double checking things. I wonder if those waves are still high enough to walk under. Or perhaps high enough to dance under?”

The Doctor shot her a wink before he noticed how she was acting. She’d retreated to the doorway of the console room, halfway to the hall which led to their rooms, and the kitchen. _‘Nope,’_ she’d thought to herself _, ‘he wasn’t quite there yet.’_

“Sounds lovely, but right now, all I want is a cuppa. Shall I make enough for two?”

The Doctor leapt away from the consoles and was at her side in an instant.

“Absolutely. I’d love some tea. You make it the best. Donna was rubbish at making tea.” He grimaced, and Rose giggled, her heavy mood evaporating.

“Alright c’mon then.” He reached out to grab her hand, and even though it was a short distance to the kitchen, she relished every step.

Finally it was just her and the Doctor, in the TARDIS. As it should be.

***

On Woman Wept, beneath the glowing ice crystalline frozen waves, the Doctor and Rose Tyler danced in the moonlight.

It was ridiculously cold, and quite a silly idea, to dance under an iced ocean, but Rose couldn’t keep from laughing. She’d managed to convince the Doctor to try on an old long striped scarf from one of his previous incarnations, insisting he’d freeze to death if he didn’t, and he looked quite absurd.

Meanwhile, the Doctor was facing an internal battle. One of the hardest of his entire existence, at least while he’d known her. He twirled her carefully, letting her spin out and then come back into his embrace, and he rehearsed the words in his mind.

Despite not knowing for certain if he’d outlive her, if she’d grow tired of him, or if he’d find a way to keep her at his side into eternity, he had yet to tell her how he really felt.

He’d been robbed of that in Bad Wolf Bay, and now that he had her in his arms again, he was having trouble finding the guts to say it.

He dipped her gently, and his memories of the last time the danced flashed through his mind. This time however, they had no quiet observer, and he had no threat to his dance. He pulled her back up, reveling in the way her eyes sparkled as they met his intense gaze, and the way her breath fanned out before her in the chilled air. Her nose was slightly pink from cold, and he knew he needed to tell her, before they headed indoors, back to the TARDIS.

He held her still, pausing in mid step, and before she could remark or even protest, he had bowed his head down and captured her lips with his.

They were much colder than usual, and she smiled against his mouth, before melting into the kiss, and indeed his embrace. For without the motion of dancing, they were simply hugging as they always had.

She pulled away from him, and he could have sworn he saw stars in her eyes.

“What was that for Doctor?”

She didn’t know. She still didn’t understand.

“That was why I wanted to come here again. I should have done it last time. But I was too scared.”

Rose’s eyes widened,

“Why were you scared?”

He smiled at her, rather nervously if he was honest,

“Because, I wasn’t ready to show you how I felt. We’d only been traveling a little while, I guess I was afraid you’d be ready to leave, running the whole way.”

Rose shook her head; her Doctor could be so oblivious sometimes.

“No. I can promise you I never would have done that. I’ve been yours since you told me about how you could feel the earth turning, when you told me what happened to your planet. When I had to buy your chips. When you took my hand in that dungeon. When you told me I was the best. When you tried to give up your life for me. Doctor, I love you, and always will.”

The Doctor reached up to stroke her cheek, brushing away the tears that had fallen with her declaration, elated that she was truly his and his alone. With every last bit of strength he had, he fought back tears of his own.

“You don’t know what that means to me. I never could tell you before, but Rose Tyler, I love you. I would gladly give my life for you a thousand times if I had to. I want to ask you one thing.” When she nodded at him encouragingly, he continued,

“Will you be my wife? Make me the happiest man in the universe, in all of space and time and-“

Rose cut him off with another kiss, which made his hearts soar. If that was her way of saying yes, she’d brought him back to life in a kiss.

For he had been dying inside, every day that he’d been separated from her.

Oh it had been quite easy to pretend he hadn’t.

As Donna had said, the code for ‘not alright’ was indeed ‘I’m alright.’

Only it was a hundred, a thousand fold for him.

When the Doctor rushed them back into the TARDIS, promising a cup of hot chocolate for them, he let her go on ahead. He needed to collect one last thing. From deep in her heart, the TARDIS had one last thing for him. He opened a hatch, and pulled out a single circle of gold, intricately carved with the Gallifreyan words for love and admiration, and set with a stone of the same dark blue as the outside of the ship.

It sparkled and shone in the greenish light of the struts of the ship, and the Doctor could barely keep from skipping to the kitchen.

The smell of hot chocolate made him feel warmer already, but the sight of Rose waiting for him with two mugs in hand warmed him to the core.

His hearts pounded as he sunk to one knee and held out the ring, and she nearly burned them both in her haste to set down the cups and take his hand. She lifted him back to his feet and was in his arms again in seconds.

The last Time Lord and the Bad Wolf, or the Doctor and Rose Tyler were now to be one. Already the universe felt a little brighter.

***

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> If you end up disliking this, or disagreeing with my rant, that's fine, and understandable. but please leave your flames at home, in the fireplace. thanks


End file.
